Saturday, February 23, 2008

Acne

Yes, acne is horrible. I know it from personal experience. Hence, I'm not one of those people who are incredibly gorgeous with flawless skin, trying to tell people how to prevent, conceal and heal acne. However, if you are one of those people with flawless skin, click the X button at the top right corner of this window because this has nothing to do with you.

The following tips are all from personal experience. Remember, I may be allergic to stuff you aren't while you may be sensitive to stuff I'm not.

Preventing Acne:
Why get it when you can avoid it?

1. Watch your diet. Lots of people say pimples and zits have nothing to do with what you eat...but from personal experience, I think they do. Don't eat too much chocolate, greasy or spicy food. (You know what's sad? I like all of those things T.T)

2. Keep a clean face at all times.

3. Wash your face with warm water and hopefully something that's gentle yet thorough enough to clean your pores. I use Lancome Gel Moussant, a gel-to-foam cleanser. Then, when your face is clear, splash it with cold water. I don't mean going from warm to slightly colder. I mean going from warm to chilly. The cold water will close your pores (At least I think that's what it does. My mom just tells me to do that and it works miracles), which in turn keeps icky stuff from entering them.

Concealing Acne:
Okay. So you wake up on the first day of school with a red thing near your eyebrow. You scream and freak out. Why bother doing that? Yeesh. You could of just spent those five (or ten) minutes sleeping.

1. Wash your face. I cannot stress how important this is. WASH YOUR FACE.

2. If you are like me and you wear contacts, you'll probably have a bottle of aritificial tears. The site for 'Miss Universe' suggests Visine to get the red of your zits out but since I don't have that, I tried a bit of my Systane, knowing I'm not allergic to it. (I've been putting that thing in my eye for the past four years and I know my eyes are more sensitive then the dead cells of my skin). Applying it to the blotchy red places on my face, the redness was gone so quickly.

3. If you (like me) don't think that getting rid of most of the redness is enough, cosmetics is your saviour. Apply oil-free concealer that matches your skin completely and voila! It's gone! I use Almay's Clear Complexion concealer in medium. It isn't magical but it does the job most of the time. Remember to find a concealer that matches your skin tone completely!

4. Remember to carry a bottle of aritificial tears and a tube of concealer with you during the day. The magic may wear off. Nothing lasts forever, right?

Healing Blemish Scars:
So. There's a scar. Go jump of a cliff. Don't freak out, lah. It won't kill you because there are ways to fade those scars.

1. Vitamin E! It's your best friend! Just apply a bit to your scars before you go to bed and over a while, it'll fade. It works for me. And many people with burns (from cooking, like my ungainly mom ==) use it to fade their scars too. (You can also apply it to your eyelashes to strengthen, lengthen and thicken them =D)

2. Egg yolk and honey is your other best friend. For me, it doesn't work as well as Vitamin E. But hey, it works.

Additional Tips:
Some things you should know about. Though most of it is common sense, really.

1. Unless you are 100% sure that you are not allergic to any of the substances, do not use those acne products. I personally believe that those things contain herbs that will get rid of your acne but also have a side effect.

2. If you are going to use a concealer to hide blemishes, make sure it matches your skin tone. Seriously, it looks more hideous than zits if you have a blotch of darker/lighter skin on your face.

3. Say you discover a zit the day before school. Ugh. What do you do? You moan and groan or panic and hyperventilate. My friend suggested rubbing salt on your zit. That works...sometimes. But the temporary redness it causes just freaks me out even more. I like toothpaste. It's my other best friend because toothpaste gets rid of bacteria. It can help clean out the icky stuff in your pores and folliciles (yes, hair folliciles - however you spell that - are sometimes also oil glands where pimples can develop). Just put a wad on your pimple before you go to bed (no one will look at you) and in the morning, it'll be better. For me, at least.

Important: Like I said before, these are tips from personal experience. You will very likely have different allergies and a different skin type.